Burdened but Unruffled

By James Gregan

Launched in 1942 as World War II was raging, HMS Unruffled patrolled the oceans for the remainder of the hostilities, destroying nearly 40,000 tons of enemy shipping - and one train - before retiring, battered and bruised but glorious, and without losing a man. James Gregan's home town of Colchester adopted the vessel and took its gallant crew to its heart, and more than 70 years on, Gregan has written this book to celebrate the forgotten submarine which he describes as 'not just another piece of war machinery but a boat which helped thirty-three heroes to survive a war when so many brave young men did not return'. The book is a detailed, thoroughly-researched account of Unruffled's three and a half years of service from Norway to the Mediterranean and from Scotland to Bermuda, with detailed accounts of every encounter, every moment of fear and every hour of glory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mereo Books
• Release date: Nov 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781861517029

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James Gregan

BURDENED BUT UNRUFFLED

The story of a World War II submarine and its crew

Copyright ©2016 by James Gregan

Published by Mereo

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James Gregan has asserted his right under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover, other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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ISBN: 978-1-86151-702-9

PREFACE

ON the 4th June 1944, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill was invited by Admiral Cunningham to visit Maidstone, to see some of the Officers and men of the Eighth Flotilla. After a stirring speech he chatted and joked with the assembled Officers oozing confidence to every single person in the wardroom as to the outcome of the campaign. When he left Maidstone tears were streaming down his face as he talked of those fine boys walking in the valley of the shadow of death.

This book is dedicated to my darling Deborah, my wife of 40 years.

The one I love is someone

Whose face I long to see

And voice I want to hear

Who puts a love song in my heart

By simply being near.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Chapter One – Barrow-in-Furness

Chapter Two – The Crew

Chapter Three – Commissioning Day

Chapter Four – First War Patrol

Chapter Five – Gibraltar

Chapter Six – Malta

Chapter Seven – Homeward Bound

Chapter Eight – Celebrations in Unruffled’s Adopted Town

Chapter Nine – Training in Bermuda

ALL SUBMARINES HIGHLIGHTED IN ITALICS

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

IN 1999 I purchased a book detailing the exploits of HMS Safari, a World War 2 submarine primarily based in the Mediterranean. This single volume changed my life and I wanted to know more about the feats of submarines during this harrowing campaign. Hence, over the last 16 years I have studied the adventures of our heroic British submariners, and that of their Axis counterparts, during a difficult and deadly time in history. Boredom, daily routine one minute – gun action, torpedoing, special operations the next. No one could have written a better script.

I began investigating HMS Unruffled as this submarine was adopted by the townsfolk of Colchester, Essex, my home town for 23 years. The district of Colchester was charged with raising £250,000 worth of war bonds to fund the building of a submarine, resulting in a staggering £435,223 being raised by the community. I would like to thank Mr R M Webb for his help in providing me with details of the crew’s visit to Colchester and Essex Archives for the program of events.

I have been a burden to Mat Knight & Alison Clarke at Royal Navy Command who have been exemplary, providing me with crew lists and cheerfully answering my never-ending questions. They must have thought ‘oh no not him again’, as this part of the book proved to be more difficult than one could imagine.

I must also thank Mr Barry Downer of the Barrow Submarine Museum who has also put up with all my questions, but never faltered. My thanks also go to ex-submariner Stuart Rose, who has kindly assisted me with endless technical issues and when I was at a loss, explanations as to the meaning off information detailed in the submarine logs.

All those staff at the National Archives in Kew must receive a special mention for their help and assistance during my many visits. I also thank the Imperial War Museum, London, for allowing me to explore their records.

Thanks are also owed to SM Elaine Zerafa, secretary of the Royal Navy Association (Malta) and a retired Maltese Admiral, for escorting me around the Lazaretto and old submariners’ haunts.

I am indebted to the Curator, Malta Maritime museum, who kindly allowed me access to their archives.

I first met Mr George Malcolmson, archivist at Gosport Submarine Museum, during my quest to track down the Jolly Roger of HMS Safari. During the time it has taken me to investigate and write this book, George has been outstandingly helpful in allowing me access to the archives, and providing advice and guidance throughout my quest.

A former colleague from my Lloyd’s of London Press adventure, Mr Ian Barratt, has endlessly toiled to sub-edit my original manuscript, providing help and sound advice along the long road in completing this book – thanks Ian.

I wanted to bring to the forefront this forgotten submarine, which to me was not just another piece of war machinery but a boat which helped thirty-three heroes to survive a war, when so many brave young men did not return from their fateful last voyages.

CHAPTER ONE

Barrow-in-Furness

23rd August 1941 – 2nd April 1942

WHEN Vickers Armstrong purchased the Barrow-in-Furness dockyards in 1897 the then-Lancastrian town was already an important centre for the smelting and exporting of steel, earning it the nickname of the ‘English Chicago’. However, following the Vickers purchase, the town’s industrial reputation and expertise took on a new dimension as Barrow became the leading military ship and construction facility it is today.

Several Royal Navy flagships and the vast majority of nuclear submarines, as well as numerous ocean liners and oil tankers, have been manufactured at the Cumbrian yard, and in 1901 the first Royal Navy- commissioned British submarine, a Holland-class, was built.

From that time the yard grew in stature and in 1941, Vickers Armstrong chairman Sir Charles Craven, a former submarine officer, was under constant pressure to produce ships and boats of high quality but at a record build rate. The Vickers yard was a cacophony of sound as workers struggled anxiously to launch ships of all types, as quickly as possible, from escorts to 8,000 -ton cruisers and the smaller but complex submarines, ready for battle against the Axis foe.

Most of the men left in Barrow worked at the Vickers shipyard or the steelworks, or were employed in jobs that made them exempt from call-up. As overtime amongst the workers was compulsory, the only time production came to a standstill was during air raids. The Vickers shipyard and engineering works were of a particular interest to the Luftwaffe, with concentrated heavy bombing raids witnessed between 14th to the 16th April, 1941, and the 3rd to the 10th May, 1941.

Although the docks, railway and steelworks took direct hits, the main brunt of the bombing fell on the nearby local population. More than 6,000 houses were demolished and a further 1,400 severely damaged. However, this did not cause any loss of production and barely a day was lost either at the shipyard or the steelworks.

Understandably, due to the air-raids, the shipyard workers did not like the night shift so, when the warning siren was sounded, machines were stopped, tools were downed and the rush for the distant air-raid shelter began.

Dozens of blue double-decker buses lined up outside the yard at lunch time ready to take the workers to all parts of the town and to bring them back in the afternoon. In the evening the vehicles would be used again to take the workers home. Barrow must have been one of the few towns in Britain with an efficient bus service during the war. All around the dockyard, derrick cranes, heavy machine shops, battery shops, rigging lofts, mould lofts, gun-mounting shops, electric shops and the foundries combined to help fuse together the metal to mould these constructions into being. Each new crew visiting the shipyard for the first time was confronted by the sound of crashing steel, the vibrating noise of rivets being driven into place and the clatter of moving parts from the various points within this vast shipyard.

Once inside the dock area, and after picking one’s way along the uneven roads, it was a case of finding the yard where your designated boat lay, surrounded by the hubbub and clatter of busy shipbuilders working feverishly on the uncompleted and complex mass of wires and steel.

This was the scene awaiting the Chief Engine Room Artificer (CERA), who was usually the first member of the permanent crew to see the submarine’s construction. William Henry Ray, the CERA assigned to P46, later to be named HMS Unruffled, would have joined the boat a month before its launching. At the time of the actual launching ceremony, the craft was still just a shell and Ray might well have been the only person in attendance who was directly concerned with the future operation of the boat. The launching itself was similar to that of a surface ship, and the VIP who launched the Unruffled, known as the ‘sponsor’, would have said a few words, and then, when he/she released a silver -coloured lever mounted on a wooden lectern, wires freed the obligator bottle, which smashed against the bow. Ship workers then knocked blocks of wood from underneath the submarine, allowing it to slide stern first down the slipway and into the cold grey waters.

This action was probably witnessed by some of the directors of the Vickers board and some dockyard workers. Even though the war was at its peak, tradition did not flounder and the traditional launch ceremony still took place when a maritime vessel took to the water for the first time. Except for a Union Jack flying proudly from the bow, no visible identifications marks could be seen. Once in the water, the submarine, still without a propeller, was taken under the control of awaiting tugs and towed into the basin for completion. After the launching, the cover plates were removed and the main motors and main engines installed. The cover plates were a large part of the top of the engine room compartment. Then the main batteries were installed by passing them through the fore and engine room hatch, together with pipes and electrical and auxiliary machinery.

Vickers did not make all the component parts required for construction and had to obtain machinery from other engineering factories. For example, periscopes were made by Barm and Stroud, compasses by Sperry Gyroscope Ltd, propellers by John Thorncroft & Company and batteries by the Chloride Electrical Storage Company. There were, perhaps, a dozen or more firms employed in the supplying of machinery and parts and their responsibility was to guarantee that no material failures became fatal to the boat to ensure that the crew had full confidence in its construction and reliability.

As time progressed, Ray would have been joined by senior ratings, with the matelots joining periodically to make up the complement of crew. These ratings would have been given orders to join a new ship whilst at the Royal Navy shore-based establishment, HMS Dolphin, in Gosport, the home of submariners and the main training facility for the crews. After a long and tedious trip from London to Barrow, the ratings were understandably often exhausted by the time they reached their destination.

At Barrow they would have been met by the coxswain who, after roll-call, gave addresses and directions for where they might be able to find lodgings, with the final order to be back at the dockyard at 0900 hours the next morning. It was then that they would have congregated outside the submarine yard office to be met by the senior ratings, who had been standing by the boat as she was being built. They would also learn that the new launch was a U -class submarine with the pennant number P46. By the end of the first day the ‘Jacks’ would have got to know each other and gleaned information regarding the local hostelries in the town, the new boys benefiting from the knowledge gained by those who had been to Barrow before and knew where all the best pubs and liveliest music was to be found.

The captain, Lieutenant J.S. Stevens, joined the engineering officer in March, 1942. A few key ratings followed later, staying together to learn all the complexities of the boat. This was also the one and only opportunity for the captain to sweet -talk the shipbuilders into deviating from the original plans and make any slight adjustments to the layout of the interior. For example, if a commanding officer was of above average height, when he was standing beside the larger, high-power search periscope, a piece of machinery or pipe might obstruct his ability to achieve an all-round view. This would be the time to discuss the matter with the foreman and come to some kind of arrangement to overcome the problem. Aspects like seating and table areas might also be discussed. No two submarines were the same, and each captain or CERA would have his own agenda. Approximately six weeks before the first machinery trials the entire boat’s company would have joined the submarine.

The boat was ordered on 23rd August, 1940, with the original yard number 800, and the keel laid down on 25th February, 1941. The launching was 19th December, 1941, and it was commissioned on 9th April, 1942. Though the boat had a pendant number of P46, it was later named HMS Unruffled, having originally been ordered as part of the batch P31 -39, P41-49, P51 -59 and P61 – 67, which, on Admiralty instructions, were not intended to have names. However, by late 1942, a directive from Prime Minister Winston Churchill demanded that all boats should be named by the 28th January, 1943, with the first group of names being allotted by the Ships’ Names Committee.

Designed with a surface displacement of 545 net tons (658 tons gross and a submerged tonnage of 740 tons), this 196 feet 10 inches long, cigar-shaped cylindrical boat had a beam of 16 feet 1 inch and a draught of 15 feet 2 inches. It was propelled by two Colchester-based Paxman Ricardo diesel generators plus electric motors, which delivered between 615/825 bhp, and these two-shaft diesel -electric motors could produce 11.25 knots surface speed and 10 knots when submerged. With 55-ton diesel storage tanks, a range of 5500 nautical miles at 10 knots could be achieved. Test diving was set at 160 feet, with a designed diving depth of 200 feet. Four 21-inch internal bow torpedo tubes, with a complement of between eight and ten torpedoes (four permanently loaded in the tubes) and a 3-inch externally-mounted gun, completed the offensive armament.

Lessons had been learned since the original design of the Group 1 Unity class (U -class). When first designed in 1934, the U -class 1 was a cheap and easily maintained submarine intended to replace the ageing H – class and L-class boats, some of which were of First World War vintage. These elderly workhorses were used for training both submarine crews and the Air Surveillance Service (A/S). The class 2 was designed with no external torpedo tubes, and the bow lengthened and reshaped, thus allowing for improved performance and behaviour both on the surface and at periscope depth.

The class 2 had suffered delays due to engine defects. Its speed, size and limited range made this type of submarine ideal for the conditions in the Mediterranean, the most successful being Ultor, Umbra and Unruffled, with over 30,000 tons each of enemy shipping to their credit.

A submarine had just three goals: to remain undetected; to retain its ability to operate unsupported in waters under enemy control; and to deliver a torpedo and/or fire a gun within range of the enemy. It had no peacetime purpose. A British single-hull submarine with a riveted half-inch thick pressure hull sub-divided into five watertight compartments and a pressure hull and bulkheads tested to a pressure of 70 psi would withstand a depth of 160 feet. The pressure hull was pierced by four hatches: the torpedo hatch, escape hatch forward, the aft engine hatch and the conning tower hatch. Six internal main ballast tanks were fitted with hydraulically-operated vents, two end tanks forward and aft, giving free flood openings in the bottom, and four centre tanks equipped with Kingston valves. A quick diving ‘Q’ tank was fitted for fast diving. The ‘Q’ tank held 10 tons of sea water, which could be vented either in board or overboard, and was left flooded while on the surface but easily blown or emptied into the sea once the submarine had achieved its required depth. This enabled the U-class to get under the surface in less than 20 seconds.

Due to its restricted width, when wet the casing (deck area) became saturated and slippery, so the surface was extremely dangerous to walk on and if a rating was not tied onto the guard rail when the submarine was underway at sea, he could easily slip overboard.

The diesel engines were used when surfaced but battery power was used when submerged. While surfaced, it was usual for one diesel engine to generate forward thrust and the second engine to charge the batteries, using the engine as a dynamo. This recharge would enable the batteries to provide enough electrical power for 15 hours at an average submerged speed of between 2 and 3 knots. The rate of discharge doubled, or even trebled, if the speed was increased. In fact, a speed of 9 knots submerged would exhaust the batteries within 20-30 minutes.

Each submarine carried three batteries consisting of 112 cells each, with the total voltage of each battery being 270 volts. These batteries were joined in parallel to make one large power source. Each cell weighed half a ton and was operated in the same way as a car battery, requiring regular topping-up with distilled water. There were 331 cells in total weighing half a ton each. This meant that up to five tons of distilled water was required, especially when on a long patrol. These batteries also provided the energy source for the electric motors.

Due to a low surface speed of between 10 and 11 knots, a U-class submarine captain would find it difficult to catch up or overtake a merchant ship and had practically no chance of outmanoeuvring a warship. This clear disadvantage resulted in some heroic, imaginative, creative and strategic tactics devised by submarine masters.

When submerged, control of the submarine was achieved by the use of hydraulically-operated hydroplanes that were sited forward above the waterline and aft below the surface on either side of the rudder against the casing. The aft hydroplanes were placed so that the thrust of the propeller was directly on them. The fore-planes were used mainly for maintaining depth. They were operated by two men from the control room and they had to work in unison because efficient control could not otherwise be maintained. Once dived, balance was maintained by the shifting of weights. This was achieved by water being pumped in or out of the boat, thus establishing a stable trimming.

The first lieutenant, under orders from the captain, maintained the submarine’s depth and speed, which were adjusted accordingly from the control room. This important compartment was sited beneath the bridge and contained two periscopes. The larger of the two, known as the high power scope, was binocular and bi- focal and used for all-round vision, and included a range finder and sky search facility. It measured nine inches, tapering to five inches, and on a clear day a top range of ten miles could be achieved.

A smaller periscope, used during attacks, was known as the low- power periscope, or attack scope, and for obvious reasons was designed to leave little ‘feathering’ on the surface. This periscope was monocular and uni-focal, giving normal vision. The panels for the operation of the vents, Kingston valve, high and low pressure air, pumping tanks, chart table, fruit machine (a device for calculating the angle, course and speed of a torpedo run), hydro-planes control and torpedo firing order instrument were also situated here.

Going forward from the control room led to a two-foot wide corridor, where the living compartments were located. The wardroom for the officers was conveniently located next to the control room, then the galley, with the ERA’s Mess next door. Next to this tiny space was sited the petty officers and leading seamen’s Mess, the wash room and, on towards the final compartment, the torpedo room. The torpedo tubes, fully loaded and ready to be let loose on an unknowing foe, were in the extremity of the bow.

The toilet was located on the other side of the corridor and was split into two divided rooms, one for the officers and the other for the ratings. Each consisted of a wash basin and one toilet, the latter being difficult and complicated to operate. There were 12 different actions to be made, both before and after, and if not operated in the correct order it could lead to the contents of the bowl being blown in an upward direction. It could even result in endangering the submarine should a wrong valve be opened. Permission from the officer of the watch was required to use this facility when submerged as, due to the pressure in the boat, this was not allowed below 70 feet. Buckets were preferred by the crew and these would be emptied overboard with the ‘gash’ (rubbish) when recharging batteries at night.

R.A. Cunningham, in his book ‘A Submarine at War’, recollects that a convenience for the use of the lookouts when on duty was located on the bridge. It was similar to a voice pipe and was known by the ratings as the ‘pig’s ear’. The pipe led to an outlet just above the saddle tank on the port side. Cunningham comments: It has been said that in the dark the actual voice pipe has been used by mistake, much to the disgust of the poor chap on the helm down below. He wondered why the sea was warm.

The disposing of the gash, mainly food waste and cigarette ends etc, was a nightly exercise when it was allowed by the watch officer. From the control room towards the stern could be found the W/T (wireless/telegraphy) and ASDIC (Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation Committee) office, next the engine-room, and finally the electric motor room. Sited below the entire length of the deck from the stern to the bow were the fuel and lubricating oil tanks, batteries, trim tank, magazine and stores, yet another line of batteries, auxiliary machinery (pumps), fresh water and